Choice
by socroy
Summary: Tenipuri500 challenge betrayal,ending. Something is broken and reformed between the Golden Pair. Spoilers from Genius 265 & 266


This is a response to the tenipuri500 livejournal challenge- _betrayal/ending_.  
Knowledge required of Genius chapters 265, 266 and the ... other one, where Oishi makes his request of Tez.

* * *

Oishi had chosen, and it was bitter- bitter like the taste of half an insect in a delicious apple, or bitter like the bi-carb soda Eiji had mistaken for sugar while cooking a cake for Oishi's 14th birthday.

_Why?_ Eiji had yelled at fistfuls of Oishi's shirt.

Oishi said that he didn't know - Oishi had never looked so haggard.

Eiji didn't notice.

_Why?_

".. so that we could win together... with the strongest team… at the Nationals," Oishi murmured, looking terrified

For an eternity they were still, Eiji's fists still full of Seigaku jersey, the brilliant red of the setting sun casting a violent glow over the courts.

Eventually Eiji moved, and leaned in, slightly.

"We wouldn't have been together either way," He whispered, squeezing Oishi's wrist in a cruel parody of familiarity.

Oishi watched him stumble off alone, feeling ill, trying to work out exactly what had just passed.

* * *

"_Martyr_," Eiji hissed, nose buried in the carpet. He was lying underneath his bed, with the bedroom door locked to keep at bay the insults of his brothers and the pleading of his sisters. 

"It's cold tonight," they told him, "you shouldn't leave him out there."

Well, he bloody well could and he was bloody well proving it. The only thing brave sentiment didn't fool was his body, and another wave of feeling, panic, threatened to surge over and wash away his resolution.

He grabbed at the carpet, inhaling deeply. It reminded him of childhood, of calmer, simpler times when promises were made for life and things were so much easier to resolve.

The hardest thing to ignore, perhaps, wasn't even there.

* * *

He was on his fifth cup of tea- Eiji's mother kept bringing them out, apologising for her son's inexplicable behaviour, and pleading with him to at least sit in the kitchen, or take a scarf. It took Oishi all he had to accept the tea, feeling as though he was imposing even as he stood outside the gate.

He also desperately needed the toilet, but to make the simplest of requests felt like trespassing over property he wasn't sure he was welcome on anymore.

He had to try, though, anything… he wasn't sure what exactly, but if he just let things go and went home to bed, he might not ever find it again… whatever _it_ was.

At least it was cool out here, and the breeze did something to chase away the red in his face… just… just being here was the best thing, indeed, maybe the only thing he could possibly do.

* * *

Eiji watched as his head began to sag slowly forwards… hup, it was back up again, one hand rubbing over his eyes. In a minute the process would repeat itself… yes, Oishi began to tip forward as his head nodded to one side… and then- up, back again as consciousness was regained.

Eiji looked at his digital clock- the pacifying green informed him it was two in the morning.

Oishi wasn't even facing his window, he was just… there.

He had been for hours.

"He'll just go again," Eiji had yelled through the door at his mother. "Don't even bother inviting him in, he's not going to stay around!"

He had stayed, though- still sitting out the front like… well, not even a martyr any more, suddenly it all seemed incredibly silly.

Oishi didn't hear Eiji pad over the damp grass, and when he woke with a jerk to the sight of Eiji before him in his pyjamas, he looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

Any forthcoming, babbled explanation was silenced by a brusque 'come on,' from Eiji, and together they went into the dark house and climbed the stairs to Eiji's room. Eiji crawled into his bed, and lifted the covers with one hand, looking at Oishi, waiting.

Somehow, inadvertently, he'd managed to destroy a promise by trying to make sure it came true… yet Eiji was still here, looking as broken as he felt, holding out a hand.  
Neither reluctance nor need was present in the gesture… he was just… there.

When Oishi finally joined him, he was too tired to even think about the meaning of Eiji's small body cuddled against his, slow breaths against his collarbone… boys didn't hug and all that.

Boys didn't cry either but that didn't stop Oishi as Eiji whispered something against his chest- something that touched his soul in the deepest way, yet made him ache for what could have been.


End file.
